eMagin Will Showcase a 5,000-nits OLED Microdisplay Suitable for VR

It appears virtual reality enthusiasts will have a lot of things to look forward to. Not only is Samsung working on 4K support, but eMagin has made a spectacular announcement as well. The company announced their Active Matrix OLED microdisplays supporting a 2000×2000 resolution. This is quite significant for virtual reality hardware moving forward.

OLED Displays Are Coming To VR Soon

The concept of using OLD displays for virtual reality is not entirely new by any means. In fact, very early iterations of head-mounted displays – not necessarily VR types – were equipped with OLED displays already. However, the days of an 800×600 resolution are well behind us. In fact, eMagin feels they successfully created OLED microdisplays capable of displaying 2000×2000 pixels. Quite a significant development, that much is certain.

To be more specific, the company announced these microdisplays in a press release a while ago. The product will be displayed during an upcoming conference in Los Angeles. It is unclear if this hardware will be used for future generations of VR headsets, though. Then again, it makes a lot of sense for manufacturers to look into what this company has to offer.

A higher resolution would certainly help VR get off the ground. Despite the high price for current headsets, the pixel density is a bit disappointing. Computers powering this higher resolution will not be cheap to build either, though. Moreover, the displays achieve a brightness of over 5,000 nits, which is something we have not seen in such a small form factor ever before. If this hardware makes its way to VR headsets, the future could look quite bright, literally.

It will be interesting to see how the market responds to this new development. The higher pixel density and high brightness are quite promising, without question. However, this product will face stiff competition from Samsung’s UHD displays, which are bound to come to market very soon as well. All of this competition is good for VR enthusiasts, though. Getting the most bang for your buck is always the best course of action.

Photo: eMagin

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